Idaho gets the first International Dark-Sky Reserve in the United States

The United States has established its very first International Dark-Sky Reserve—one of 12 found around the globe, and now third largest in the world. The designation was granted to the Central Idaho Dark-Sky Reserve by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), which says the region offers 3600km² / 1400mi² of "exceptional or distinguished quality of night sky, view of the stars and nocturnal environment."

The Central Idaho Dark-Sky Reserve IDA designation is a milestone for American conservation, not only protecting wildlife in the region from the negative effects of artificial light, but also giving visitors from around the world another place to view the pure night sky.

The US reserve and its international designation is the by-product of about 20 years of policy and hard work by Idaho residents, businesses, and officials, according to the IDA. The collective worked to reduce artificial light in central Idaho and agreed to manage artificial light in the region henceforth.

To get the special designation, Central Idaho land managers formed partnerships with IDA, committing to help preserve the quality of the pure, unadulterated nighttime environment. Ketchum, Idaho Mayor Nina Jonas talked about that, saying in a statement to the IDA:

This is the culmination of a lot of work, important policy decisions and commitment by so many to manage our light pollution. We're pleased what this says about the commitment our communities have shown to protecting our environment and spectacular window to the universe.

Central Idaho didn't only win an International Dark-Sky Reserve designation, though. IDA says it has granted this reserve its Gold Tier rating, meaning that the reserve offers one of the darkest night skies among all Dark-Sky Reserves. Information on the Central Idaho Dark-Sky Reserve, including a clear sky chart and map, are available here.

It isa good start. The next step to is ban the high altitude jets that spray the skies to saturate the atmoshere with aluminum, barium, and sulphiruc acid in through chemtrails. Even on the rare days when they are not spraying the skies with these toxins the skies in many places have lost their beautiful blue color with the whitish haze. My night skies have lost their potential to see stars as clearly lthey used to.

If you do not onow what I am talking about you have not been looking up. This is happening everywhere with a stated objective of dumping 20,000,000 tons of aluminum in the atmosphere yearly. http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org

the degree to which our planet is being modified is frightening ... of course, you need to be careful ,or the media programmed simpletons of the world will accuse you of an wearing aluminum foil hat

these chemical adulterants being "secretly" sprayed by these ghouls are not just intended to modify the geophysical aspects of the atmosphere but to affect the physiology of humans as well ...having a nation of morons on board with anything the feds do meanspublic support for the warnings of concerned scientists and private citizens will mostly on eiither deaf ears ... orworse ,... giggeling fools

40 billion dollars worth of aluminum per year? Really? That is about half of the world's annual production. Someone must think there are huge benefits to be dumping that amount of resource. Not to mention the cost of all those tinfoil hats. And who's budget does it come out of?

if you wanted to reflect solar energy away from the earth .. what would you do ? while i cannot claim to understand the secret goals of geoengineering or the reasons behind the dumping particulates in the atmosphere... i i hadda guess they attempting to manage global warming by reducing sunught with "nanomirrors " i.e. al microparticles

indeed the cia ,white house, congress, the house of representatives, NASA homland security the brooking institute and lots of other creeps the all have web sites staffed by strangers ....to you ... so i must agree with pete here

and should you decide that media brainwashing by cbs nbc cbs cnn apppeals to you ... then at least pay attention to remsfelds declaration of the pentagons missing trillions ....yes trillions do ne the day before 911

the next day on 911 the newly reenforced side of the pentagon housing the financial and accounting was destroyed along with the financial records... bhere it is for anyone with a modicum of intellectual honesty and healthy legal curiosity ....

FWIW, you can shoot DSO from light polluted skies, especially if you are shooting narrowband with a monochrome camera. Not saying we could not do more to reduce light pollution, (I do AP, and want it dark as possible), but it is not a showstopper other than for people doing single shot landscapes.

No doubt. I can pick out brighter constellations from where I live, (300k population), but that's about it. Like I mentioned, it's not ideal at all. But AP is still possible and this site is about photography - I was not trying to minimize the impact.

Sorry but I don't see the link between light pollution and these people you named. Most of the time, light pollution is a matter of local lightning policy and rules... remember "people have the power".

I don't travel much anymore, but I still think out in Death Valley is a good spot too, where there is virtually nobody, and if you can get far enough from any of the major roads (CA 190, and the main roads around DV) then you're pretty good. I was able to capture the milky way on my last trip in October without much fuss (except for it was my first time shooting the milky way so my stars weren't quite as sharp as they could have been--got some movement, but that was more technique that light pollution).

For my two night shoots, I was at Rhyolite for one of them, which was not as great, as there are lights around that area (one or two street lights so you have to find an area away from that... and I was close to the railroad car). The second spot was the Harmony Borax worksite which was great for both night photography and light painting. I would think Badwater and the race track would also be good spots too they are in fairly remote, areas away from little towns/campgrounds, etc.

I found the Top of the World Hwy (TOW) in Alaska, to be VERY dark late in September, after the border crossing is closed for Winter. And along the Dempster Highway from the Arctic Circle, N to the NWT border, is also a very dark area save the occasional vehicle traffic (0-10 vehicles per hour?). The South end of Kluane Lake is excellent some of the time, but since Slims River dried-up mostly, there can be lots of dust in the atmosphere on some windy nights. Nahanni NP is also quite dark, but accessible only by air. I'm 65 this month, and the night of September 25 this year, on the TOW, there were more stars visible than anytime in my life, including at altitude. A truly incredible experience!

This is information I am very glad to have as I would like to see what is up there. At home in London UK or wherever I have travelled, it has not been up to much. It may even influence where I go on vacation ni the future, if I discoiver sights worth seeing on par with what I saw in the SW when I visted in 2011, Zion and the Southern Rim being truly memorable.

If the world 's nights in ancient times was like being in the middle of NYC now, perhaps they (we) would hardly have gotten out of caves or such. Seeing only 3 or 4 stars and a planet at night besides the moon, could lead one to believe there is no Universe. If the sight of Milky Way as shown in photo is real, it's an inconceivable thing to me and I'd fall down in awe.

The Milky Way as shown in the photograph is the result of long-exposure to allow enough light to show colours. To the naked eye it is (with the exception of some distinctly coloured stars) black and cool blue-white.

But the photograph doesn't show much more in the way of detail than is visible to the naked eye under the right conditions (and with good eyes). Viewed from a truly dark site with dark-adapted vision (ie at least 45 minutes after you have been exposed to other light sources) it is staggering and beautiful. Once you know a little about the distances, masses and energies involved it is even more interesting, and not a little humbling too.

The fact that more people can't see it is partly to do with population growth and the spread of cities, but even more to do with the very careless way we flood the night with light that does no useful work.

Less than 3,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, even under optimum conditions. Out of 100,000,000,000 in our galaxy alone. Even in NYC, a few planets, a few stars, one moon and sun are visible. Shouldn’t have made any big difference to the curious mind wondering what’s out there.

I do concede though, that astronomy would be a lot harder to develop for some hypothetical deep ocean civilization ;)

Bravo! I miss seeing the stars so much and everybody and his brother add lights and more lights. Then there are those stupid spikes charged by solar energy that do nothing more than add more light to the light pollution every night.

Yep. Christmas time and my TV is flooded with ads for lights. One that particularly gives me the s__ts shows a nice backyard through different times of the day. In the evening it's just barely lit by a verandah light. How to make it better? Put in a tonne of solar-powered lights. Don't just stick 'em in the ground though, string 'em up in the trees too! That way even your lucky neighbours get some of your useless, unwanted light. Useless? Not one of the shots shows anyone actually occupying, much less doing, anything in the yard. It's just lit up like an arc-furnace.

Makes me want to string up the light manufacturers. I'd say "Merry Christmas" while I did it too.

Solar garden lights don’t add much to light pollution, except within that garden itself. They are too dark. Look at earth’s night satellite photos to get an idea. Esp. interesting is Belgium, a single big white patch at night from space. The biggest culprit is street illumination. And in Belgium, highways are illuminated at night :(

A few years ago, I visited Cuba and admired great starry night skies, even close to cities. Cuba simply doesn’t produce enough electricity to waste it on street illumination or neon ads and houses are pretty dark at night too.

I benefit from a dark spot just 30 min south of Munich. It is dark because just south of it is a nature reserve with no lights. The lights in the direct vicinity doesn’t effect the dark sky much, it is the overall light output from a few hundred square kilometers which matters.

Indeed, light pollution doesn't come from a few super bright spots like Time Square... it comes from our very own private and public lightnings witch are on every night, every where. Most of people don't even notice that lots of public lightning light up both the ground and the sky. What a waste. And low consumption LED make it even easier to add such lightning everywhere. It has been noted that in France, electrical power consumption for such lightning has raised since LED development. Didn't we think it would lower our consumption ?Without specific political will, there won't be dark skies anymore. And I fear that dark parks will transform in excuses for not fighting usual light pollution.

Personally, I love a dark sky. And I love an illuminated city. We shouldn’t value one over the other. Personally, I always found it deceptive to see illumination of tourist landmarks switched off around 11 pm.

Street illumination nowadys is directed lights down. But it bounces off the streets into a light hull surrounding modern cities. Unfortunately. Maybe, sensors could steer light to where people actually walk, or cars are driving. That could help a lot in suburbs and rural regions late into the night.

OK. You know, the sun is neither orange nor red but sometimes this is how it looks. Did you look at the Milky Way from every places on Earth to be sure it does not look the way it is on the title picture ?

One should note that the human eye switches to monochrome vision at dark, i.e. when looking at the Milky Way. The first time I took a photo of the night sky at school, I was shocked to see that stars have color...

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